This MOOC identifies and explores a number of challenges to the finance professional arising from the ever changing business environment. Increasingly, financial decisions must take account of strategic consequences.
The first module, Exploring Strategic Position, Choice and Action helps in doing that – setting a strategic context for planning for, monitoring and controlling projects and activities. An on-going set of challenges is found in the evolution of International Reporting Standards.
The second module focuses on some recent changes in Standards, identifying the drivers for changes, and examining evolution in controversial areas such as leasing and goodwill.
The third and final module, Corporate Governance, examines issues which are causing people to re-assess the nature, purpose and scope of corporate governance, and challenges to making governance function effectively. Key issues here are the move to include a broader range of stakeholders, the perennial challenge of agency theory issues, shareholder activism, changing Board structures, and challenges to internal control to better manage risk.
This MOOC will be right for you if you are interested in engaging with some of the challenges facing finance professionals, even if you are not one yourself. If you are thinking about returning to study this will provide a taster of academic endeavours through reading articles, critiquing ideas, and blending theory with reality.

FA

Was such a refreshing experience. REally helps to get you back in the swing i.e. the mood of things.. A 5 star course

AR

Nov 24, 2018

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

This course was very relevant, with robust supplemental material, and challenging but not unrealistic timeframes.

À partir de la leçon

Exploring Strategic Position, Choice and Action (Part 2)

Welcome to the second part of the first topic of 'Keeping up with Change: Issues for the Finance Professional'. In this module you will be exploring two further key areas of: Strategic Action and Evaluating Strategic Action. Throughout the module you will have the opportunity to apply all of you learning into context, be that based on your own organisation, or your professional experience in general. This will enabling you to apply the theoretical models we cover in the module to your professional practice.

Enseigné par

Dr Sarah Warnes

Teaching Fellow

Dr Alan Parkinson

Deputy Director (Education), School of Management

Mr Suman Saha

Visiting Academic

Transcription

[MUSIC] Continuing with our theme of exploring organizational culture, I'd now like to introduce you to a very simple model, called the Cultural Web. And what the Cultural Web Helps us to identify the more covert aspects of the organization as linked to Shine's three levels of culture. So, it actually gives us a framework to start asking questions, deep questions about. What is going on? What is the culture of this organization? By carrying out this tool, we can begin to identify what the cultural assumptions are, what the practices that are led by the culture, and also maybe things like, the willingness to change. So, are we operating in a culture that's very flexible and open to challenging the status quo? Or actually, is this an organization that's firmly rooted in the past and is very resistant to change. So, by carrying out a detailed cultural web, some of the answers to these questions will emerge. And the task that you will have, is to actually carry out a cultural web for your own organization. One that you're currently working in, or maybe one that you've previously worked in, just to help you to analyze the culture. The what is going on in the organization. It's depicted, most commonly, through three circles. And at the center is the paradigm. The paradigm is what the organization is about, what the organization, if you like, represents. And I want to apply this to A university, okay. Because it's easy if we can understand in context. So if I was describing, let's say university A, the paradigm for me would be it's innovative, it's innovative in all areas. It embraces change, it allows staff to develop, it allows staff to take risks. It's very much active in terms of the research that undertaken within the school. It's very student-centered, it has a high reputation. So, these are key words that help to explain the paradigm, if you like to draw the picture of what this organization represents. And then we have six key areas that situated around this paradigm, which all feed into the paradigm. The first area are stories. And these are the stories that people tell about the organization, and it could be anything. But when you start an organization, you will hear people telling stories of the past, of events that happened. So, it might be things like the Christmas party that was held a year ago, or the year before, or every Christmas party has got its own story. It might be a celebration of the company's history. It might be a particular story about the leader of the organization. It might be about the time that so and so did a great karaoke. It could be anything. But these stories really underpin what's going on in the organization. It could be about the guest speakers that come in, the opportunities, where they'd go to work. So the stories, the stories that people are telling. Not the stories that the organization is espousing publicly, the stories that the staff are talking about. We also have rituals and routines. So, these are the daily rituals, the daily habits, the routines that happen within the organization. So, that may be the three monthly committee meetings. It might be the senior management team meetings twice a year, it could be the all staff meetings every year, the annual meeting. So, these are key events that take place at set times through the year. So in the exam, time table comes out. And we inform the students when the time tables become available. So, the rituals and routines that happen all the time, okay. They make up the story of the organization, the personality of the organization. And then we have Control Systems. So, when we're talking about control systems, what we're trying to establish is how are people controlled within the organization? Because, however it's wrapped up, there will always be, there has to be an element of control within organizations. So, are people controlled by their appraisals? Are they controlled by student feedback, the NSS data, the student evaluation questionnaires? Are they controlled through their workload and their work allowance? Does the university, in this context, present and publish leak tables, etc. So, how are people being controlled within the organization? Moving around, we have here organizational structure. So, the organizational structure actually tells us quite a lot about the culture of an organization. And university A, which I'm using here, I would describe as a very flat structure within the school. And I say that because everybody's involved in decision making to a point that's practicable. We would like to say that we have an open door policy. That there aren't many chains of command. So decision making is quickly, because it's decentralized throughout the school. So, and it's very democratic. Other organizations, you might say, are highly bureaucratic. There's lots and lots of layers in the organizational structure, there's only a few key people that make all the decisions, and it's a much slower bureaucratic type of organization. The one we're talking about is more of a democratic structure. There's a structure in place, and again, I think there has to be. But it's not full of lots and lots of layers. Linked to that, we have Power structure. And when we're talking about power, again, it's in all organizations. It's to the degree that employees are either empowered in a positive way, so that they're given flexibility, they're given responsibility like in university A. Or is power imposed upon employees in both overt and covert ways. So, where does power sit and how is power used? Are managers managing from a distance? Allowing people to be empowered and carry out their tasks. Or are we talking about micro management? Where the manager is there, not literally on top of you, but watching you all the time. And that's a very different power structure. Very much linked to organization structure. And then the last one is the symbol. Now, symbols link, in a way, to shines first level of organizational culture Artifacts. Because what we're talking about symbols is the symbols that actually give an indication of the culture. So, when I think about this university, I think about it as movable, as flexible, that there are fixed desks. But you can come and go as your work requires. You can work from home. You can actually work anywhere, so it's mobile. It's fluid. I think about the quite funky logo. That's a symbol. I think about the new building that we might be able to go into shortly. That's a symbol. So, what are the symbols? It's not about posh cars and posh offices, and people suited and booted. It's about flexibility. It's about change. And it's about embracing the individuals within the organization. So, those are the sorts of symbols that I'd be looking at. The logo, those sorts of things, the mobile working. So, if we look at the cultural web as a big picture of an organization. If you do that yourselves, you share it with peers, you'll be able to actually be able to actually begin to explain the culture of the organization. Because explaining culture is difficult, and it's difficult because it's embedded within us. It's the taken for granted is what we do every day without thinking about it. The cultural web provides you a framework to actually think about it and begin to assess it. And then we can begin to see whether the culture is right for strategic action and change. [MUSIC]